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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Orcs: Forged for War - Stan Nicholls and Joe Flood

I first encountered orcs in The
Lord of the Rings novels, but as author Stan Nicholls points out in his
introduction to this book, J.R.R. Tolkein didn't invent them. Instead, orcs,
like goblins, trolls, etc., go 'way back in folklore. Nicholls has written a
series of fantasy novels using a company of orc mercenaries as the
protagonists, covering their adventures as grunt-level infantry in an ongoing
war involving two different factions of humans and a number of races of
supernatural beings.

FORGED FOR WAR is the first
graphic novel set in this universe and serves as a prequel for Nicholls' prose
novels. It's pretty good, too. This is grim and gritty fantasy, not the more
sedate style of high fantasy I've never been able to get into. Stryke, the
commander of the orc company known as the Wolverines, is a Sgt. Rock type, the
world-weary soldier who just tries to get the job done and keep as many of his
men alive as possible.

In this story, the Wolverines,
who work for a cruel half-human, half-dyadd empress named Jennesta, are serving
as bodyguard to a group of goblin scientists who are supposed to be testing a
new sorcerous weapon of mass destruction. But there are all sorts of plot
twists and double-crosses going on, so it's not surprising that eventually the
orcs are just trying to survive when things start to go wrong.

As you'd expect, there's plenty
of hacking and slashing going on, some touches of humor, and a nice, fast pace
to the story. I'm not crazy about the art by Joe Flood, but it gets the job
done. One problem is that so many of the orcs look so much alike, it's almost
impossible to tell them apart. The only one who really stands out is Coilla,
the lone female orc, who's smaller than the other Wolverines.

I enjoyed ORCS: FORGED FOR WAR
quite a bit, enough that I'm going to look for the regular novels. If you enjoy
graphic novels and dark fantasy, this one is worth reading.